Untold Ref Review: Everton 1 – 0 Tottenham Hotspur

This article is part of a series stretching over several seasons in which a team of referees analyse the work of refs in Premier League matches.

Our figures show that when we analyse the errors made by refs there are consistent trends which do not “even out” through the season, as some commentators would have it. All the earlier ref reviews plus analyses of the errors made by refs, and articles relating to our campaign to have the body which organises referees activities reformed, plus an analysis of the background to this campaign, can be found on:

Although this is a site built for Arsenal supporters we welcome comments from fans of other teams, although we tend not to publish comments which are simply abusive or which are completely off topic.

Today’s referee is Mark Halsey –

MATCH REVIEW DETAILS – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)

Period 1

Min

Type

Foul from

On

C/NC

Comment

Weight

6

OTHER

Osman

Modric

C

Trip

1

9

OTHER

Heitinga

Adebayor

NC

Kick on the ankle not given

1

10

OTHER

Sandro

Osman?

NC

Late trip, advantage given that goes away because the Everton player is offside, should come back to the foul

1

10

OFFSIDE

Everton

NC

should have given the first foul

1

11

OTHER

Defoe

Heitinga

C

assumed correct

1

15

OTHER

Cahill

Ekoto

C

assumed correct

1

18

PENALTY

Heitinga

Defoe

NC

Heitinga clearly went in from behind on Defoe just after he took his shot and the ball in play. Should have been a penalty for Tottenham

3

19

OTHER

Ekoto

Drenthe

C

assumed correct

1

20

OTHER

Sandro

Cahill

C

push in the back

1

22

GOAL

Everton

C

correct goal

3

27

OTHER

Jelavic

Sandro

C

Trip

1

28

OTHER

Cahill

Parker

C

Pull

1

31

OTHER

Fellaini

Defoe

NC

Pull not given

1

32

OTHER

Jelavic

C

Handball advantage given

1

32

OTHER

Osman

Defoe

C

Little trip off the ball, advantage given

1

32

OTHER

Sandro

Coleman

C

came in the back

1

36

OTHER

Drenthe

C

handball

1

40

OTHER

Cahill

Parker

C

Trip

1

41

OTHER

Heitinga

Defoe

C

push in the back

1

42

OTHER

Ekoto

Drenthe

C

push, advantage given as a counter is on

1

44

OTHER

Walker

Baines

NC

push not given

1

Period 2

Min

Type

Foul from

On

C/NC

Comment

Weight

49

OTHER

Adebayor

Heitinga

C

Push

1

54

OTHER

Modric

Drenthe

NC

Frontal tackle not given, Drenthe has to jump up to avoid the impact

1

55

YELLOW

Modric

NC

should be a booking, dangerous tackle

2

58

OFFSIDE

Everton

C

assumed correct

1

59

OTHER

Defoe

Heitinga

NC

Defoe holds Heitinga off with his arm and wins a corner

1

60

OTHER

Ekoto

Drenthe

C

trip

1

60

YELLOW

Ekoto

C

stopped a promising attack

2

61

OTHER

Defoe

Heitinga

C

pulled him down with the ball not near

1

61

YELLOW

Defoe

C

you sometimes wonder what gets in to some players mind, correct

2

63

OTHER

Coleman

Sandro

C

trip

1

66

OFFSIDE

Tottenham

C

assumed correct

1

67

OTHER

Cahill

King

C

bumping in to King who was in the air

1

71

OFFSIDE

Everton

C

assumed correct

1

73

OTHER

Felaini

VDVaart

NC

push not given

1

74

OFFSIDE

Everton

C

advantage given

1

74

OTHER

Neville

Parker

C

trip

1

76

OFFSIDE

Defoe

C

correct

1

76

GOAL

Tottenham

C

goal is correctly disallowed for offside from Defoe

3

77

OTHER

Rodwell

Defoe

C

trip

1

80

OTHER

Heitinga

Defoe

C

trip

1

80

YELLOW

Heitinga

C

stopped a promising attack

2

83

OTHER

Felaini

VDVaart

NC

came in late, not given

1

83

OTHER

Saha

Baines

C

trip

1

84

OTHER

Kaboul

Cahill

C

trip

1

85

OTHER

Straqualursi

Walker

NC

came in late, not given

1

85

YELLOW

Straqualursi

NC

stupid and useless challenge on the achilles, should be cautioned

2

85

YELLOW

Walker

NC

Little reaction from Walker should have been cautioned, but more a foul from the ref this one

2

88

OTHER

Kaboul

Heitinga

C

assumed correct

1

89

OTHER

King

Stracqualursi

C

holding

1

90

OTHER

Coleman

Bale

C

could have been a bit of a dive, but no conclusive evidence it was not one

1

92

PENALTY

Baines

C

Appeal for handball but the ball came of his own leg and then against the arm that was close to his body

3

94

YELLOW

Howard

C

time wasting, more of this please

2

95

OTHER

Straqualursi

Walker

C

holding

2

You sometimes have a feeling: was this good or not that good at the end of a game. And then you go and check the numbers and you just keep on sitting with a double feeling. Too many missed fouls by the ref. That is a first conclusion. And most of all the mistakes were made on the big decisions.

Tottenham should have had a penalty when Defoe was tackled from behind after taking a shot on goal. What is the difference between a late tackle from a striker or from a defender? When it would have been the other way around the ref would have given the foul for a late tackle and a yellow card against the striker. Now it was the defender who came in late from behind and the ref gave a goal kick. There is nowhere in the rule book a paragraph that is saying that the rules are different in the penalty area.

COMPETENCY SUMMARY – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)

Period 1

Called

Total

Correct %

GOAL

1

1

100.00

OFFSIDE

0

1

0.00

OTHER

14

18

77.78

PENALTY

0

1

0.00

TOTAL

15

21

71.43

WEIGHTED

17

25

68.00

Period 2

Called

Total

Correct %

GOAL

1

1

100.00

OFFSIDE

5

5

100.00

OTHER

14

19

73.68

PENALTY

1

1

100.00

YELLOW

4

7

57.14

TOTAL

25

33

75.76

WEIGHTED

33

44

75.00

Totals

Called

Total

Correct %

GOAL

2

2

100.00

OFFSIDE

5

6

83.33

OTHER

28

37

75.68

PENALTY

1

2

50.00

YELLOW

4

7

57.14

TOTAL

40

54

74.07

WEIGHTED

50

69

72.46

When we look at the fouls in general the score was acceptable. Not great but well just enough. But as said the major decisions were not good enough.

BIAS SUMMARY – Mark Halsey (2012-03-10)

Period 1

Everton

%

Tottenham Hotspur

%

Total

Correct For

6

40.00

9

60.00

15

Correct For Weighted

8

47.06

9

52.94

17

Incorrect Against

3

50.00

3

50.00

6

Incorrect Against Weighted

3

37.50

5

62.50

8

Fouls Commited

13

65.00

7

35.00

20

Fouls Penalised

9

69.23

5

71.43

14

Period 2

Everton

%

Tottenham Hotspur

%

Total

Correct For

13

52.00

12

48.00

25

Correct For Weighted

19

55.88

15

44.12

34

Incorrect Against

4

50.00

4

50.00

8

Incorrect Against Weighted

6

54.55

5

45.45

11

Fouls Commited

13

54.17

11

45.83

24

Fouls Penalised

10

76.92

9

81.82

19

Totals

Everton

%

Tottenham Hotspur

%

Total

Correct For

19

47.50

21

52.50

40

Correct For Weighted

27

52.94

24

47.06

51

Incorrect Against

7

50.00

7

50.00

14

Incorrect Against Weighted

9

47.37

10

52.63

19

Fouls Commited

26

59.09

18

40.91

44

Fouls Penalised

19

73.08

14

77.78

33

What was good was the fact that he made 14 wrong decisions and that those decisions were even split over both sides. And even when it came to bringing in some weight the decisions were balanced over both teams. So this is good. In a way it doesn’t matter if the ref was good or bad, as long as he was the same for both teams you can say: oh, he will have had a bad day. But too many bad days in a season is not good for the league in general.

But I must confess that even I as an Arsenal supporter while watching this game was wondering: are there some forces who want to bring some kind of gap between the two top teams at that time in the league and Tottenham who was in third at the time?

4 comments to Untold Ref Review: Everton 1 – 0 Tottenham Hotspur

Superb analysis and as a Spurs fan i have had the same feeling as your bottom para suggests.May i make one observation about the penalty near the end where Baines has a ball hitting his hand.Right or wrong it was in complete contrast to Adebayo dissallowed goal aginst Man u the previous week .The same decision should have been made in both cases.again reinforcing your last paragraph

I concur – unless fans from all teams can stand together and demand something better then nothing will change. The football fan-base is fragmented by tribal boundaries and further atomised by the smoke and mirrors of the media – we need to grow up and see past it.

Once the game is sorted and clean we can then get back to hating each other every weekend and, after the match, at least know for sure that the best team won on the day!